Almost History: Close Calls, Plan B's, and Twists of Fate in America's Past - Hardcover

Bruns, Roger

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786866632 ISBN 13: 9780786866632

Publisher: Hyperion, 2000

Synopsis

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore peace will stay to rest in peace.... Fortunately, these words were never spoken by Richard Nixon. Like many speeches, this one was written in preparation for events that might have happened, but never did. This collection of speeches and other archival material reveals how things would have been handled.

About this title

About the Author:

Roger Bruns is the Deputy Executive Director for the National Publications and Records Commission at the National Archives. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

If D-Day Had Stood for Disaster -- 1944

Personal note of Dwight D. Eisenhower in case of D-Day disaster

Group Capt. James Stagg, chief meteorologist for the Royal Air Force, made what some believe was one of the most important weather predictions in military history: gradual clearing on June 6, 1944, in Normandy, France. Against an entrenched German army, mounds of hedgerows and sunken roads, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces, had prepared a massive assault, "the opening phase," he said, "of the campaign in Western Europe." An invasion force called Operation Overlord consisting of 4,000 ships, 11,000 planes, and nearly three million soldiers, airmen, and sailors assembled in England for the assault. But everything depended on a break in the bad weather that was plaguing the English Channel, a window of opportunity for the assault to take the Germans by surprise.

General Eisenhower trusted in Captain Stagg's prediction and went forward with the plans. The dismal, rainy days that preceded June 6 -- which did force Eisenhower and the Allies to delay the landing by one day -- finally lifted, and more than 150,000 troops stormed the beaches. Their objective: to open a second major European front in the battle against the Germans. Victory was uncertain. The day before the landing, Eisenhower drafted a note in his own hand on a small sheet of paper, a message to be delivered in the event the invasion failed. In the rush of the moment, he wrote July on the bottom, rather than June, and put the note in his wallet.

As the attack began, Allied troops faced not only withering fire on the beaches from artillery and machine guns but a maze of tangled barbed wire and other barriers designed to prevent landing craft from reaching shore. About 4,900 soldiers -- American, British, and Canadian -- became casualties that momentous day on beaches called Utah, Omaha, Juno, Gold, and Sword. But at its end, the Allied troops were firmly ashore and in control of 80 square miles of French coast. The final destruction of Hitler's Third Reich had begun. The value of the message in General Eisenhower's wallet was not in its utility but in its symbolism: the Allies had turned history in their favor.

But what if the break in the rain and fog had not occurred, and the Allies had attempted the invasion in bad weather, thus placing their troops at even greater risk, or instead had delayed the invasion for many days, thus jeopardizing the advantage of surprise that had carefully constructed? The note that Eisenhower carried in his pocket that day was not based on unreasonable fear of failure but on a distinct possibility that Operation Overload could have brought tragic loss.

Personal Note of Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 5, 1944

Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0786866632
• ISBN 13: 9780786866632
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224